The Poet Laureate is not-a-lot-of-laughs, eh?

[Letter in reply to article: Telegraph.co.uk: "Carol Ann Duffy is the not-a-lot-of-laughs Poet Laureate"
By Judith Woods. Published 7 December 2009. Note: Several minor corrections of the original have been made to the following letter.

The Poet Laureate is not-a-lot-of-laughs, eh?

It has been said over again in myriad ways that modern men and women must entertain and be entertained while not falling off the carpet they are riding on. When poets forget how far above the ground they are flying, they tend also to forget to hold onto the fringes of the carpet, and the ride may be a wild ride, indeed.

My copy of the Folio Anthology of Poetry (introduced by Carol Ann Duffy) recently arrived at my home in the U.S.A. In Duffy's introduction she writes "No matter how long ago it was written, good poetry is forever giving anew to the good reader and, indeed, forever receiving anew from the reader whose warm hand and breath and gaze is upon the page." This is as well said as anything I can think of pertaining to the art of poetry, but unfortunately, as poets, we often forget why we write, thus losing the reader's "warm hand and breath and gaze." Duffy, perhaps, sees reasons for "reproachful sentiments" and believes what to her is duty is also expedient, and for which there is a great deal more to be said. As the great Anglo-American poet Eliot (T.S.) asked, rightfully: "It is an advantage to mankind in general to live in a beautiful world...But for the poet is it so important? We mean all sorts of things, I know, by Beauty. But the essential advantage for a poet is not, to have a beautiful world with which to deal: it is to be able to see beneath both beauty and ugliness; to see the boredom, and the horror, and the glory."

When poets become too disenchanted with the world they reveal that their winged words are really made of lead. They shouldn't be flying on carpets for they become not only a danger to themselves but for everybody else as well. Poets should not be too engrossed in the affairs of the world for that is a charge that poets cannot afford, and once the scale is tipped against them there may be no turning back. The world we live on is no Paradise. The poet who forgets in their heart, in spite of all, that it is not a bad sort of place, and fails to accept its shortcomings, will not fit readily into the scheme of things and eventually will fail.

Our society, without thinking, tends to give poets too much incentive for greatness too soon by piling on awards, honorariums and riches for which they are not ready. Starting out well is not enough, as the poet ages he or she must be grateful for all that is granted to them. And, however others in the world may have started out, the world needs poets who can rise above the dourness of the modern world and get beyond waiting for Godot. The reader shall not be satisfied with anything less.

Modern poets need immediately to cease expending their energies on endless ingenuity which is forever being betrayed by cynicism. They need to focus their energies on why a planet that is not quite round and spins dizzily through space at breakneck speed is still a rather pleasant place to live. A poet who cannot accept the shortcomings and limitations of humanity cannot "see beneath both the beauty and the ugliness" and come to any meaningful conclusions. My Christmas wish for Carol Ann Duffy is that she may expel the weariness that the world carries in its heart, and take up her task with more dignity and hope on an uncompromising planet.

Dom Giovanni
Irish Italian poet

December 8, 2009

Where Should I Begin Reading About World War I?

A question came up during a group discussion about where to begin reading for a better understanding of the First World War. The questioner wanted information on "something with a great story," historical fiction preferred, avoiding exhaustive historical accounts of the war and individual battles, in order to better understand what a grandfather must have gone through during the Battle of Verdun. Drawing from my own book shelves and movie collections I have made a short review of some World War I literature in general, not all of which specifically pertains to Verdun but are considered classic literary accounts of the First World War from the viewpoints of actual participants.

Literature about the First World War (1914-1918), is plentiful and varied, but because of the time that has elapsed since the end of the war to the present, much has been forgotten by the general public about events that took place. Many of our grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and yes, even many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers were participants to varying degrees. But what about them? Historical fiction is as good as anything to begin an inquiry.

My reply to the questioner (updated and expanded slightly):

A book on the First World War (called the "Great War") that belongs on your bookshelf, as others have also suggested, is Eric Maria Remarque's classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1929). This novel is to World War I literature what Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage became to the American Civil War, indisputably the best war novel of the period. All Quiet on the Western Front has been described as "The book that shocked a nation," resulting in denunciation of the author, exile, and public burnings of the book. This is the story of professional patriotism in the German military gone awry, of the brutal realities of trench warfare and disillusionment among alienated soldiers in the words of German soldier Paul Baumer. Following the success of this book Remarque wrote The Road Back which appeared in 1931. Remarque later wrote Arch of Triumph (1945), a story of romance in decadent Paris just prior to World War II, which became his most popular story after All Quiet on the Western Front. Since its first publication in Germany All Quiet on the Western Front has never gone out of print, appeared in many languages. and can be had cheaply in paperback form to more costly leather bound editions. All three books were filmed.

For short stories about World War I, John William Thomason, Jr. published a superb collection titled Fix Bayonets (1926), they recount exploits of the United States Marine Corps during the war as well as in China, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Thomason had a long career in the Marines and authored and illustrated collections of short stories, magazine articles and other books until his death in 1944. He was awarded the Navy Cross while serving as the executive officer of the 49th Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment in WWI. Fixed Bayonets was an immediate bestseller upon publication and is still in print. Thomason's short stories are vivid and realistic personal recollections of the Marines fighting with the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I with his own highly praised illustrations.

English poet, novelist, critic and classical scholar Robert Graves' autobiography Goodbye to All That (1929 and 1957) is one of the highly acclaimed memoirs of fighting in the trenches with the British Army during the World War I. Graves revised the book in 1957 and removed many of the more significant events and figures of the 1929 version. Goodbye to All That still stands as a classic work on personal experiences during the war, including the traumatic incompetence of the Battle of Loos.

German writer Arnold Zweig's Sergeant Grischa series, The Case of Sergeant Grischa (1927, and filmed in 1930 and 1968), Education Before Verdun (1935), and The Crowning of the King (1937) have become well-received novels of World War I as well. With publication of The Case of Sergeant Grischa Zweig became an international literary figure. Three Soldiers (1921) written by John Dos Passos, was the only American book that could approach the naturalism of Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. In this novel Dos Passos recounts his experiences with an ambulance unit in France during the war. Humphrey Cobb, born in Italy of American parents fought with the Canadian Army in World War I. His magnificent novel Paths of Glory (1935) is another good novel born out of the war and made into an excellent movie (1957) of the same name by Stanley Kubrik, starring Kirk Douglas and Adolphe Menjou. But nothing can surpass Lewis Milestone's movie adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 B&W film) starring Lew Ayres and Louis Wolheim, although a very good film of this novel was made for CBS Television in 1979 (Color) starring Richard Thomas, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasance, Patricia Neal, Dominic Jephcott, plus a host of other good actors.

The reader interested in knowing more about the First World War through literature will find it helpful to begin with these books and the several mentioned motion pictures. I don't think that one could find a better start. I am reluctant to call these novels and movies "anti-war" as is commonly done, a term that has become in my mind an overused cliche'. To think that the underlying theme of most of these novels is anti-war is naive. All wars have exhumed disenchantment and stupidity of varying degrees and sometimes, often really, an author's intentions are misinterpreted. Actions of a particular war in a particular time and place may be viewed in a literary setting that seems to speak of being against war in general, which of course, is a noble endeavor, but many of these same novelists had not written their last words by the time the next "great war" was to begin.

Dom Giovanni

December 6, 2009

Letter to Gabriella, On the American Left, So-called

Dear Gabriella,

I am not bothered at all by telling you what I believe is true. Most people, and I include myself, believe that they can understand what is true more clearly than others, especially those others with with whom they most often disagree. I doubt that many of them actually see as clearly as they think they do. They rarely, at this late date, arrive at mutual satisfying conclusions with each other
over even the most trivial differences. I think that they argue themselves out of arriving at satisfying conclusions, because to agree with the "other" is beyond the pale. So much for "seeing" clearly!

If we do not first respect what truth is or may be, and I doubt that many of us start out naturally wanting to know such high thoughts without some forceful changes of mind, then we cannot understand what it will take to make being truthful a naturally occurring habit? There are simply no easy answers here, at least in the initial stages when dealing with our own selves and motives.

If this is true, that it is not easy, many people then simply do not have anything in common with it (truth). More than a few people are just as sincere in being untruthful as others are trying to be the opposite. The whole idea of truthfulness can be made into a game, and if we are not willing to conquer our natural unwillingness to be truthful with ourselves and between each other, or find out where to begin, the game will conquer us. We must not find only a right starting point but the right starting point and there can only be one. Being sincere in our beliefs and thoughts about what is truthful is of no help. Truth is not a commodity on the exchange market.

Personally, I really do not care very much about political ideologies, for most of them are built upon false assumptions, basing their livelihoods on something that is not true. False assumption is common and it effects all of us in some way. For instance, if someone trying to prove that all early Native Americans were magnanimous individuals by using the story of Pocahontas saving the life of John Smith as proof, he or she would certainly fall into this fallacy, since this is only one instance of a Native American being kind to a captive, where many other historical acts concerning their treatment of captives have proved otherwise. I use this analogy not because I think Native Americans need to be faulted for their past, rather because there are many people who stick on points of the past and refuse to be confronted by their own errors of the present. Political ideologies prove nothing just as the past proves nothing other than that the ideology must be obeyed at all costs. The slave drivers are those at the top wielding the whip of fear.

Not only can we not cannot argue from false assumptions we cannot develop theories that we think are possible by shrewd guesses. Probable causes do not give us the answers to past conditions. When later referring to our guesses as facts, and establishing the possibilities of our theories as facts, we fall into the pitfall--arguing from a false assumption. Political ideologies, more often than not, work from ambiguous evidence and erroneous statements of fact and whoever errs from these does so at their peril. Somebody somewhere will make that fact plain, for it is a too great a thing to watch someone walk away from the built up lying that political ideologies are made of. It is intolerable.

What do I think of the American left? Perhaps it is not wise to answer such a question. It may even be harmful to me to answer such a question and prove nothing, because of the false analogies and assumptions accepted by a prejudiced public. For this prejudiced public evidence and reason have no sway. But to be brief I will try, Gabriella.

The American left, so-called, is only about crime and punishment, excusing their own crimes and trying and punishing everyone else for their shortcomings. In this, if not through use of the law or social stigmas, those who consider themselves the left, leftists, progressives or whatever in God's name they currently call themselves, gladly use every form of public humility they can imagine such is their puritanical nature. American leftists, as I understand them, are consumed by wrong principles and self-absorption. The essentials of good persuasion do not exist in their lunatic madhouse of ideologies, they are only assumed. Proper argumentation, clearness, and skill have ceased to exist and been replaced by contentiousness in the leftist bag of tricks. If not in all of them, then in all that matter.

This is not to say that other ideologies do not in some way share many of the same shortcomings, which is not the point. I have little to say at this time about others who may be equally obstinate and prejudiced. Every person and every party has to come to their own understanding of what they are and what they might become. The question is what do I think about the American left? That is what I actually think.

We cannot drive people from their opinions, they go back to them as a dog does to its vomit, not even knowing why. People who place themselves on the political left often say that they are making America and the world safe for democracy, but what a laugh that is. They use ridicule as a weapon, and a weapon is an instrument of destruction, not a very useful tool for building a democracy. They preach forms of peace but deny it by their weapons of choice. So then are they lying? Are they not people of peace? Emphatically, yes! They are lying and they are not people of peace. They prove over and over again that they want forms of peace but only on their own terms. The world beyond our borders has the same problem with the political left that we have, there is no answer outside of our borders.

I am sure that the ideologically left-of-center have some well-defined objections to my point of view and I am willing to give my respectful attention, but absurdity I will not hear. I say this because I know that in many of their points of view they are more than willing to say that the debate is over. Imperious pride and power impoverishes the left. They have nothing of value that I want. Knowledge of the world, scientific hypothesis, literary acumen, nothing that the left may boast of interests me, other than to make me question whether they are out to impoverish those who disagree with them and to make them obedient to their point of view?

We must not be unsympathetic towards the conflicts within the enormous panorama of human life unfolding before our eyes. The American left only serves to create ever-coarsening political propaganda and self-deception. I have no great feelings of satisfaction knowing that they leave a vivid distaste in the minds of well-wishers to the development of humanity. People around the world are at a deadlock, many of them not knowing which way to turn for answers, not knowing whom to trust with their income, property and their lives. Having little understanding of the treacherous problems involved in the political climates of the day, people are not truly informed, but are led by the arbitrary principles of power or to fend for themselves.

The left, through corrupt and willing uses of laws have served this nation and the world badly. Make no mistake, it is dangerous to cross over to where there are no paths of glory. If we must live we should do so with decency and, at least, a semblance of order. I see nothing of this in the lives of the left, always much spoken of but not verified. For all of their talk of building bridges among humanity, I see nothing except the tearing down of bridges that exist. Our lives are crossed, there's and ours. We live at a time when honor and loyalty to true ideals are trod upon by dwarves in everything but name only. The spirit of truthfulness has seemed to vanish from the world.

However the many and varied people of the left look at themselves, they cannot hide the fact that they are not good at faking. Political hypocrisy is especially offensive, on an equal footing with religious hypocrisy, for politics is a religion to most left-leaning men and women. I don't think that what I say about them is out of context with the way in which they speak and act. They tap into a populist anger which they themselves spread and build upon. The best of them, the faces of their leadership, however they are found, fake civility while hypocritically calling for civility. They disguise their own sexism while decrying it in others. Subtly, they practice the most vile sort of extremism while pointing it out in you and I. They plant jokes in their public gardens of evil but cannot laugh when the seeds of laughter are blown back in their faces. Of course, they use crude and offensive rhetoric to discredit those whom they despise yet characterize themselves as public saints. It's all pig crap and they know it, Gabriella, and very hard to defend.

It is a Judas that will sell anyone out for political gain. From the highest magistrates to the lowest membership of the left a jingling is heard emanating from their pockets as they walk, thinking it is sweet music they hear. They are so full of themselves that they are nauseous. Winking and excusing themselves between each other abounds but only builds the impregnability of their vanity. Unless they come up with something better, this is the impression I am stuck with. Failing to do right things in a right way or manner is impregnated on their calling cards. It is easy to censure and throw stones, and very difficult to dislike what deserves it without despising, I know.

I have tried to make allowances for my reasoning, Gabriella, and I conclude: the left cannot be trusted because those who make up the left will not trust anyone outside of their own pathetic circle of influence. The people of the left are not happy people. It is fitting to treat them justly, although, they are much to be pitied.


Yours sincerely,

Giovanni

Niente di nuovo sotto il sole

December 5, 2009

You will note that I have made some changes and corrections,
I think for the better. This is what I like best about electronic
letter writing.

On Style in Letter Writing

One of my favorite old books is How to Write Letters by J. Willis Westlake, published by Sower, Potts & Company in Philadelphia, 1876. Now, it is very old and much has changed in American writing since that time, but some things never change. For instance (I quote):

Letters, as a class, are distinguished from other kinds of composition by an easy, natural mode of expression--half colloquial, half literary--which we designate as the epistolary style. But in this apparent unity there is infinite variety; beneath this general style, we find a large number of special styles. In fact, every kind of letter--we may almost say every letter--has a style of its own...

The style of a letter should be adapted to the person and the subject. To superiors it should be respectful and deferential; to inferiors, courteous; to friends, familiar; to relations, affectionate; to children, simple and playful: on important subjects it should be forceful and impressive; on lighter subjects, easy and sprightly; in condolence, tender and sympathetic; in congratulation, lively and joyous. It would be absurd to write to a schoolboy in the stately phrases of an official letter; and equally absurd to use the familiar language of love and friendship in a communication on business.

Whether we write letters and mail them or forgo letter-writing wholly and send only emails as correspondence, some things still never change. One is the rhetoric of writing, which is the art of expressing thought. Much of what passes today for an expressive style lacks clearness, elegance, and force. Who would take seriously or respond to a writer who writes (politically):

u know if u would follow mi advice u would be in a better position to argue ur point of view. No duh here, u know me by now i say what i mean. And i don't take advice from freakazoid nut sandwichez on the left or right, or any other creepy psychos cuz i know where i stand and hope u will agree with me. we can only get along if we only try. i know how ur buds thinks they got it all down but are misleading u and i wont u to know that. give up ur wild eyed maniacs wile there is still time for i no longer follow rectal-cranial inversions spewed by the quasi-lefty crazies or right mongerers. or any truther whackjobs TMMLOL, for that matter. the left's growing increasingly hysterical and i can see it an u can see it and people all over the right just lean on it and blow everything out of proportion. everybody is in full crisis mode, check. the freak show is the left the freak show is the right, and those who pretend to stik to the middle live in the deepest recesses of ignorance big time cuz they think they are the base we all stand on, duh. its all reeeealy creepy! u know, quasi-psycho and its affecting us as a nation. no one gives a crap about the big government truthers anymore, becuz they push the crap we hear and read and see and all that. its all crap pile on time! the government and their newsies distorts the pictures we see left or right or center. they want to talk about fairness, rights, reform and free speech but dont want the other guy to. the government cant stand to be attacked by any point of view becuz its personal. the whole things a freak show! u know, duh! i wuldn't follow arrogant douches and i want u to know cuz i care u know. u know i'm not much of a fan of people that don't make sense and i can tell u who dozn't on the nightly news. just take me at face value.

This example may seem extreme to some readers. I can assure them that it is not extreme at all, but it is a style of writing that has become common practice among those who should know better. One almost gets the sense that such writers are silently congratulating themselves on their wit if not their logic.

When Character Stands Fast

Antonio:

I came across these lines from a very old book of the Aeneid by Virgil. It sums up
much of what goes on today. People attack and attack and attack, but men and
women with true character stand fast while the rest fall away.

Uni odisque viro telisque frequentibus instant.
Ille velut rupes vastum quae prodit in aequor,
Obvia ventorum furus, expostaque ponto,
Vim cunctam, atque minas ferfet coelique marisque,
Ipsa immota manens.

They attack this one man with their hate and their shower of weapons.
But he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which,
exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against by the waves, endures
all the violence and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

Virgil, Aeneid

A great thought from a great man at a time when greatness is personified
by the truly small-minded.

Giovanni

Ludo,

I thought that you should know, the flies have written a new book. It's called Big Ideas for America with the emphasis on Big.

Giovanni

Giovanni's Pocket Oxford - Cliche'

Dear 'extremely cantankerous person':

How many times have you come across the cliche' "not that there's anything wrong with that"? This hackneyed phrase goes on and on from pen to mouth without letting up, and of course, what is usually meant concerns an often-overused opinion of one kind or another. If truth were told, there is found in the realm of opinions "much that is wrong with that."

Giovanni

Giovanni's Review of GLENN MARTIN, DDS

To Ragazzino:

I can do without Michael Eisner's petty show and without those servants that parade this measly stuff. Mr. Eisner is rather pleased with himself, I see, but no matter what costumes he dresses his talents in, they still have a distinct odor not unlike the smell of clothes washed in a camper's toilet. That a person would fob a thing off on the public such as this driveling cartoon shows Eisner's vanity, which I suppose is colossal. I am sure that he could do better if he were willing to try. To those who would prefer a review with more homely imagery and quiet phrases, I am sorry for them, for I am afraid I must disappoint their expectations.

Giovanni
August 17, 2009


Raggazino, we should not give the impression that we are willing to be pleasing at any cost when stupidity gallops freely throughout the world.

Jughead (Review)

For his nine hundred ninety-ninth feature film, British director Sam Smoothy (Amsterdam Hybris) turns to the pages of Anthony Advice's 999 book on his experiences in the Golf War, and enlists the aid of William W. Willy-Willy, Sr. - a former Marine Captain who fought in Jungle I - to convert the story into a credible screenplay. Smoothy's film weaves back and forth (a usual cinematic device) in excruciating Heavy Metal Tin Pot territory in the first twenty-five minutes, with young recruit Swaphead (Jeke Nolopololo) undertaking some rigorous basic training under the glowering, unwavering gaze of constantly shouting Staff Sgt. Sanctum (Dick Dock). Impressed with Swaphead's reading material in basic training - The French Philosophy of Canute Camuck, Sanctum invites Swaphead to become part of his secretly-shrouded team of raiders known as "The Lightnin' Fleas of Flambeau", and partners him with ubergrunt-recruit Joe (Matthew Hicycle), who both finish first in Basic Potato Peeling and Sniping, ultimately taking them to Desert Canyon to fight in the first Golf War. Once they arrive in the punishing desert heat, the long wait for battle with the ticks, bed bugs, and assorted vermin, known collectively as the National Leftist Liberation Army of Creepy Crawlers (NLLACC), does not immediately begin, putting them all in danger of being destroyed by a bombardment of golf balls that periodically falls around them. Not being used to inaction, Swaphead and Joe nearly go out of their minds doing nothing from the long wait under the intense sun shining pitilessly down upon their heads. They threaten to take more personal action but Sergeant Sanctum convinces them that, in due time, they will be needed by the General Staff for a secret mission that only they are capable of accomplishing with any measure of success. So they wait. And wait. And wait, until gradually the searing heat takes its toll on the Marines around them who begin running off in all directions lobbing grenades at sand hills, shooting flies out of the air with machine guns, holding midnight raids on the chow halls, and chasing SKIRTS with the points of their bayonets, while all the time shrieking like sun-crazed maniacs. As you can imagine, it is frustrating being in a desert war. You have little water but the warm mouthfuls you carry in a plastic canteen that reminds you of urine as you tilt it to your lips and stare dizzily into the burning sun. This was the standstill for writer Anthony Advice, who found himself going into "action" but not seeing it before his naked eyes, and director Smoothy rakes it across the screen in smooth lines of torment and boredom that the soldiers encounter. Drawing on the experience of acclaimed cinematographer Dink Donkin (The Shuttlecock Redeemer) to help cinema goers understand exactly what misery it is that Marines have to undergo in the punishing desert heat, Smoothy's film marches deeply into untamed territory, the likes of which many movie watchers haven't seen since Sheeni Martini lost his mental balance in that acclaimed but totally overrated epic Archipelago of Snuff. Indeed, Smoothy deploys a few similar tactics that made F.F.F. Copenhagen's 999 film so effective: a hip-hopper opera soundtrack that uses songs from artists as varied as Garbage Monster City, Public Enemy of Ham n' Eggs and The Goons, and the feeling of disillusionment and futility is brought to bear on the minds of the soldiers filling the screen with smoke from the fires that seem to drift in from all corners of nowhere and blackens the desert sky. Intelligently, Smoothy stops in mid-track with a moment of humor to overcome the monotony of their daily routine, when Swaphead, Joe, and their team discover a mysterious rocket found in their midst, long and white and smoking furiously from one end. Fearing that it might explode at any moment, Swaphead enlists the team to urinate on it and diffuse the hot warhead. Swaphead receives a medal for his cool, determined action in the face of death. Avoiding any overt antiwar sentiments (antiwar has often been confused and misread in books and films for decades), Smoothy tries very hard to provide a thoughtful account of life in the modern military, demonstrating how technology has made the job of soldiering all but redundant, creating disaffected troops who are as much a threat to each other as the enemy they wait to slaughter in the sandpits of hell--which is how Smoothy would like the viewer to see it on the screen. But real honest-to-goodness flea soldiers know that this is an unrealistic view of soldiering. There is much more to fleas in fatigues than we usually find portrayed in contemporary Hollywhacked blockbusters. Even in pre-999 war movies there is much to be taken seriously and directors such as Smoothy fail to take this into consideration. Smoothy is a cut above the flag-waving propagandist but only just, as are the directors in his league who bring to film their own unbalanced soul-searching and inner turmoil. They display their personal nobility of forces to justify their power or lack thereof, by harshly criticizing an enemy or even those they deem less than their intellectual equals (home-grown enemies)--and in essence all films are propaganda--who makes it is a moot point. The question must be asked why do these newer films sell only once to an unsuspecting public with their updated propagandist tendencies and tossed over at a tenth of their original price, while classic films of propagandist or national interest last in the memory for decades and the demand for them only increases? But it is not for me to burden Smoothy or other filmmakers with tough questions that they may be unable or unwilling to answer. The director's job is to direct. Smoothy's film is strong in some points, his lighting of the desert for instance, but gives an overall appearance of being orchestrated by a gang of back-seat monkeys wielding shotguns. Anthony Advice's book swoons over the burden of war without ever having fired a shot, and Smoothy's direction picks up the broken pieces of Advice's dismay through William W. Willy-Willy, Sr.'s screenplay about a war he wasn't even a part of and we get an off into the wild-brown-over-there war movie angst vs. cockroach vs. Spanish Flea. Jeke Nolopololo ought to have stayed at home and baked oatmeal cookies for his dog instead of oo-rahing into the night with wooden-legged player Matthew Hicycle, who likewise, would have been better off elsewhere. Dick Dock's Sanctum at least, has the physical appearance of a Marine Staff Sergeant, although he does have an annoying habit of scratching whenever he is about to speak, which isn't as often as he is shouting. Sally Diddley (Blogger's Cafe' 999) gives a brilliant but brief one minute performance as Air Force Colonel Doodli Dudley before she mysteriously spins off into who knows where. Jughead is an intense catastrophe of a movie waiting for an alibi by everyone involved, actors, director, producers, who can offer no credible excuse for being part of such a disaster. Nothing happens. The old spark is gone and someone has to be unlucky enough to tell the cast and crew the bad news. The unnerving honesty of a war film is covered over by bombs and burning bushes while the Marines give sleepy interviews to eager journalists that are apparently asking questions far out of harm's reach. What this film loses (a sense of purpose) it makes up for with a greater velocity into the mindlessness of other war films such as Kubra Dick's Blondes in Big Wigs, specifically the boot camp scenes, and leans heavily on Oliver Rhinestones Schlock at War Trilogy. References to other war films cannot save Sam Smoothy's Jughead from motion picture oblivion. Smoothy, as all contemporary directors seem to do, feels compelled to sink what might have been a meaningful film with gratuitous crap language, smarmy leftist violence, and indigenous vermin nonsense. The fleas just don't get it anymore.

Giovanni

What other reviewers are saying:

3 stars out of 5 - "Sun melting on butter!" The Gonzo GoNightly - Glenda Glantz (9/99/999)

5 stars out of 5 - Jughead inches you up to the brink of disaster and drops you on your head." - Rolling Bone - Itch Jones (9/99/999)

"It was William Shakeflea who wrote: "Compare this play to a swan or crow, and I will make you think this swans a cow." - The London Box Office - R.L. Loo Rav (9/99/999)

"A misplaced agression." - New York Times & Fishwrapper - Crowthly Bowsler 9/99/999)

5 stars - "I went to the movies to fill the empty vessel that is my head, ready and waiting for the history and myth that's spliced from the director's chair, and I wasn't disappointed. Sam Smoothy gave this impressionable wannabe gal gyrene a buzzcut experience like no other." - Saturday Night's Covered with Alice - Alice Ben-Decht (9/99/999)

"Six legs up! I was mesmerized as the fleas moved silently up to the rim of the sandpit...I can't give away the ending. Another war movie without a shot being fired!" - Chicago Lake Sun Times - Roger eBogarte (9/99/999)

A Boring Pairie Home (Letter to Ludo Sforzi)

Ludo,

I have amended my letter somewhat and added a few new thoughts. First, ours is an age when nearly everyone can be bought for the right price, whether it is with money, political power, or social persuasion of numerous ordinary kinds. This is no time for tears or thinking better not to have been born, but a time for comforting the human spirit in an aftermath of nearly incomprehensible comedic tragedy.

Now, as to your question about Garrison Kiellor: I have listened to many of his radio broadcasts in the past and I have read a number of his more recent newspaper commentaries. When I first began to listen to A Prairie Home Companion, I thought that the monologues were skilfully edited and recorded but slightly tedious. He arranges and projects his monologues in a learned monotonous manner, using country commonplaces, events, people, and places such as the fictional town of Lake Wobegone, Minnesota. They are quite believable. It makes me believe that rural Minnesotans are actually like they are in Kiellor's imagination. Certainly it is a draw for many of his listeners. I am afraid that it will do little to drive away the impression for many that Minnesotans are generally politically and socially addlebrained. Which we know is nonsense but hold to the illusion of truth.

As time went on I listened while I worked, like the good sort of elfin that I am. One day I put down my hammer and the shoes I was working on because my early fascination with Kiellor's radio discourses was slowly beginning to crumble. That his programs still sells to audiences all over, as I understand it, is not much of a factor. We are all of us slow to rise our minds from listening to the dead. I think that Kiellor unknowingly projects (to use an old term) a kind of learned Bohemianism, a picture of a free and irregular life that is only supposed to affect someone in the arts and not the rest of us. This is an uncomplimentary bogy in writing but compelling to many of his listeners, for they are distracted by the stories or by his praise in the marketplace. The ready answer for us is that there exists a place for cultural analysis, fairly without animosity.

Many of Garrison Kiellor's committed listeners are simply unable to disengage. More recently upon reading his newspaper commentaries, I believe that I have found him to be less a humorist and more the appalling cynic. His bona fide in the radio programs I do not question, but his good faith in the written comments I do. His one-sided and overused interpretations of many people and their motives are beginning to wear. Particularly, if those same do not measure to a preconceived opinion found only in more nervy, wire strung individuals, and far worse, he writes as though he owed no person anything. Kiellor's inhumane view of others with differing viewpoints contradicts his learning and the image he attempts to project of himself as the all-around good guy with the humorist's look upon life.

There appears to be no economy of style or judicious wording present in the commentaries. It is all a dark look at other people and their psychological frame of reference and nothing at all of who we are in this human thing together. What is really being presented is a faux beauty. A variety of smoothed-over vulgarities and sycophantesque masks in place of a jack-pudding face of imagination is what I am reading. Once all of the groups in Kiellor's repertoire in which it is easy to make a joke about without troubling himself are gone, what is left? It is easy to make jokes about characters in a piece of fiction but an incredible stretch to go from there to making constant and offensive cracks about living people in an ongoing public forum. It is not only that, it is stupid and in bad taste. He manipulates his readers and bullies his antagonists by evoking a subtle hostility towards them.

The road from humor to criticism often follows a mean path. We should not often flatter ourselves into believing we are modern reincarnations of Mark Twain. Too soon desperation sets in, and we find that unlike Twain we are no longer funny. Mark Twain was not a desperate man. If we don't think that he was natural, we don't think. Here I break with Garrison Kiellor. The bare facts speak for themselves: that he holds no moral righteousness is most persuasive. I find him in his writings smooth and smug, and condescending to those he dislikes. His focus is artificial and it is here also that the demons lurking in the pit of his imagination are beginning to falter. They are becoming unruly and disobedient and he no longer has what is needed to tame them. The major newspapers have pretty much a monopoly in the area of who will appear in print. Kiellor's commentaries appear because of their beneficence towards him and it is unlikely to be any other way. It is inevitable that the press blows hot and cold.

Do not be discouraged or criticize him more than is needful for that will be harmful to you. That there are so many people today who publicly poison the wells of civility without any remorse, and who will make no concessions of any kind towards the people they kick is not to be underestimated. They are drinking the pure waters of terrorism. They make a show of being grand gentlemen and ladies; some do not even pretend to that elevation but make much of being coarse and crude. In my judgment they use the hands of authority to abuse, condemn, and ridicule. In his writings Kiellor makes astounding statements that are obviously not true. Should Kiellor hold too long on his present course of condemnation of people like yourself he will find no safe haven. Eventually his support will falter even if it does not completely fade away. Certainly, at the very least, he will die like all of us are destined to do, and he will be buried with honors by his peers. His abuse then will come to an abrupt and perhaps unwilling end. Ludo, it is much safer to be kind than to be totally condemning.

I am sure that Kiellor will be remembered for the distinctive style of his early A Prairie Home Companion work. In that I wish him well. As a critic he is bitter and vehement. It's too early to tell how he will end up. I think that he is nearing seventy years of age and habits die hard, especially if we do not turn them while we still can; that is, while we are young enough to know better and not old enough to be arrogant in the place of sense and duty. Nostalgia is not all that it is made up to be. Sometimes it is a pile of tripe. Perhaps Garrison Kiellor has abandoned his dreams. His is not really a warm and fuzzy personality.

Giovanni

P.S. If you are going to quarrel don't quarrel over goat's wool, Ludo. It's all or nothing.


Think of Aristotle's example of a syllogism:

All men are mortal.
Demetrius is a man.
Therefore Demetrius is mortal.

Cornycopaye (Review)

After a leisurely number of debut seasons, FLEBU's stunningly creative cable-television series Cornycopaye stepped up the pace in round fifty-nine of its allegorical tale of good and evil set against the backdrop of a Twenty-first century traveling circus. By the beginning of the fifty-ninth season, carnival-roustie Scratch Hawkens (Dick Bleak) reveals that he is a credible avatar-cum-circus performer, who has grudgingly accepted his destiny as a "being of light" while continuing to search for his proto-goddess-like mother, Missoula Montana (Henrietta Bo-Simpson), in a gothi-Homeric odyssey that takes him from his demented backwoods clan to an eerily cloying spinner of death shrouds. Meanwhile, Scratch's nemesis, the evil university professor Brother Bat Harvard-Oxford (Clint Clute) does his best to instigate an apocalyptic shootout between Chi Chi Guevaro street urchins and Nemo Nomad's demagogic band of progressive rabble rousers via an increasingly powerful left wing political campaign that invites obvious comparisons to early-2oth-century neosocialist politics. When polar-opposite avatars Scratch and Bat finally meet in the season's final moments, the result is one of the most emotional, profound, and terrifying climaxes in television history. Though it was unduly canceled after the fifty-ninth season (the show was conceived and directed by Daniel Pompadorous Schmittchfeld as a sixty-six season story arc), Cornycopaye is an ephemeral germ that will undoubtedly unfold to become a cult favorite among the upper classes as iconic as that other benchmark of the dark and bizarre, Double Mountains. This collection presents on HDVe all 59 episodes of the unjustly short-lived series' fifty-ninth and final season.

Giovanni

What other Editorial Reviewers are saying:

5 stars out of 5 - "Cornycopaye is a plush epic, featuring exotic locations and a cast of millions. A genuine tribute to flea television." - Rolling Bone - Itch Jones (9/9/999)

3.5 stars out of 4 - "No one who cares about organic acting will want to miss Dick Bleak's magnificent performance, his brooding eyes reflecting wells of idealism and exploding torment. Impossible? Impressive!" - London Box Office - R.L. Loo Rav (9/9/999)

"Schmittchfeld has done it again! It's beautiful and enigmatic. We ran out at the break of dawn and waited in line for hours for the complete boxed set of the 3,481 episodes of Cornycopaye for Junior's birthday." - The Boston Wailer - Scotty Wott and Sadie Saxxe (9/9/999)

"A dog and pony show." - The New York Times & Fishwrapper - Crowthley Bowsler (9/9/999)

"Six legs up! Daniel Pompadorous Schmittchfeld's writing and directing is persuasive, an ethical firebrand among the dry branches, in a series that includes the commonplace with the unfamiliar and unusual chapters in a flea's life." - Chicago Lake-Sun-Times - Roger eBogarte (9/9/999)

Letter to Federico Curiosa

Fred,

I recently happened upon an excellent first edition of The Letters of Mercurius. Soon I shall delve into the mind of that anonymous and "slightly crotchety" master of Oxfordian prose, and when I do, I will write more about it later.

A few days ago I came across this line somewhere during my reading: academic of the avant-garde. I thought it was interesting but I can no longer place where I first read it. I have added a few words of my own--a mere academic of the avant-garde genre. Whenever I read and find a line that I like very much and wish to use it, hopefully I will not misuse the opportunity without proper identification of the original author. Training myself to slow down while at the same time trying to teach myself about writing and how to write, seems daunting. There is so much to learn. English! How I ever stumbled across this infernal language I will never know. But, sometimes words must be appropriated and rephrased, to be used in a new context in a new age with a new meaning, and this is probably the most difficult task of all for me. One must work at it. Go back and reread, pour over everything one has written, clarify, make notes etc.

On that matter we spoke of yesterday: it is not to the American liberal's taste to read my writings with any kind of fondness and I am glad of that. I believe that some of them are searching for an "intellectual totalitarianism" of a sort, one which will please their soidisant post-modern tastes and does not confuse their hastily constructed consciences. Do not hold it long against them for some of them are our friends, and with friends one uses wit not venom in the social areas.

I still think of our kayak trip on the Mohican in Ohio with M in June. What a great time we had. This fall I will surely set aside time to meet you in the mountains, near where you spoke about on the telephone. I have always wanted to take a trip down the Clarion River. Pack lunch. Vino!

Giovanni

July 31, 2009

Like the Pharaohs (letter to the Telegraph)

Posted to the Telegraph.co.uk
July 27, 2009

"When Tutankhamon popped his clogs" is a good read...and I have just gone through the traumatic experience of disposing of my lately late parents belongings. But I had to travel a round trip distance of 800 miles, once a month for 5 months to complete the work of sorting through years and years of accumulation. My fathers collections were vast, from dignified art, lockers and a safe full of British and U.S. commemorative coins of princes, princesses, queens, and presidents, boating and marine equipment by the box loads that I remembered fondly from my youth, huge amounts of music by everybody who was anybody, and every subsequent invention to play it on, cameras and photography equipment, watches and jewelry by the score to the lowly campaign medals and Zippo lighters from his military days; collecting by my mother was more frugal, saving only in large amounts besides pretty blouses and highly raved about rings, those much despised "monuments to democratic capitalism" -- piles of cash.

Being originally from a part of Great Britain but having lived in the United States I am often intrigued by how some Brit writers compare our two countries--yours being the little corner of the tomb and ours being the great hall. Old Tut would have loved it here but I am sure that he would not have thought much about your place or state, having been a pampered and precocious teenager, accustomed to the best and a lot of it.

What a dilemma it was deciding what to take home, the things to share, and the chattel for the auction block. Needless to say, I brought from each trip memorabilia and mementos of every description, stuffing it away in every available and conceivable space that I could find, where I am sure upon my own demise it will be discovered by an inquisitive Howard Carter of the future. Good luck, old boy! If it hadn't been for the dedicated help of one of my best friends (with an occasional break for boating excursions) I would still be sorting through piles and piles of kimonos, photographs, ivory carvings, tools and whatnot.

Back to the comparisons--yes America has a lot of, again "monuments to democratic capitalism" but why should we not? We have to store away our stuff just as you do, not in a paltry 700 outside treasure houses but in over 57,000 and more are being built every day. Why, just think, the whole of Great Britain is only a little mouse of a nation that would fit comfortably inside the state of Michigan and still have room for a large family around the edges. At only 94,525 square miles to our 3,537,438 square miles that's not much to boast about. I can see why you wouldn't want to save too much stuff. So I suggest, being good neighbors, I will let you send some of it over to me for storage. I can still make room somewhere among all my books and this and that for whatever you can spare. I will be able to look at it nostalgically and think of my home away from home.

Good read, old boy. I did like all of your pop idioms and expressions such as impedimenta, popped his clogs, and flog it in the bazaar. How did you manage to collect such an extraordinary amount of words? All this time I was defining my status and myself by what I own, when I could have gone another route. It was a pleasure reading, Boris.

Giovanni


Posted in reply to Like the Pharaohs, we're getting buried by our own possessions by Boris Johnson, Telegraph.co.uk 26 July, 2009.

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London (elected May 2008). Educated at Oxford University, as well as being mayor of one of the world's largest cities, Boris is the author of several books, appears regularly on British TV, and is also a journalist and feature writer for The Daily Telegraph. It may be noted that besides family, Boris has a passion for cycling, painting and tennis.

"When Tutankhamon popped his clogs there really ought to have been someone in his entourage who harbored doubts, deep down, about what they did next. It was all very well to mummify the kid, but I wonder whether anyone stopped to ask whether he was really going to need all that clobber."

for the full text of this article, see the Telegraph.co.uk it is well worth reading.

WHO IS GIOVANNI?

The writer Giovanni and the poet Dom Giovanni first appeared sometime in the late twentieth century, disappeared for awhile, mysteriously reappeared, then vanished again, each time reborn in the same body with a new mind and new eyes for seeing.

If I were to compare poets to anthologies the resulting list would be exhaustive. Rittenhouse, writing long ago observed that the pageant of poetry (and I am reversing this to read poets) have "been so often presented that no necessity exists for another exhaustive review" of the species. That our poet became a poet is enough.

For any writer a deeper explanation of him or herself is often necessary. Not because there may be more to the inner workings of writers than of poets, but that contemporary writers are still a dime a dozen and poets are not. Writers feel that they must explain themselves or be explained fully and unconditionally. Perhaps to justify their consciences for the bald act of becoming writers. Poets have no fear or a need to be so fully explained.

Observing that the world's din mysteriously waxes and wanes between episodes of pure brilliance and unexplained imbecility, the writer Giovanni thought that he, too, would add his words to the prolonged, loud and distracting noises of the phenomenal worlds in which he found himself. A challenge to be sure, because he did not desire to grow up to become a great writer or a fire chief but an unadorned poet.

Upon further reflection, and finding in himself a need to change occasionally, from poet to writer, Giovanni knew that it would be an ambitious undertaking to throw himself as a writer against the waning and the waxing of the world's follies and successes. Yet throw himself he did, beginning with two good and wise decisions. He bought a second-hand dictionary and a notebook. The writer was born!

Our new writer never pictured himself as an outside observer. Writers are usually inside observers, but of what phenomena I cannot tell. Our writer, this writer, he, always pictured himself standing and looking around in the middle of an enormous room full of people. Whether he could be seen in return he did not know, unless he acted thoughtlessly, which he very often did. This led him to become a writer. Write these people he told himself.

The task was daunting at first and not a little scary for such a large undertaking, that is, adding more words to the overburdened world. Thinking, at first, that it would be better for him to melt away than add his indiscretions to the indiscretions of so many who do not seem to care a whit about what they do or say, the writer appeared and disappeared like a hesitating apparition. It is easier to be an indiscreet writer than be an indiscreet poet. Which explains why there are not many great poets but numerous idiot writers.

And thinking that he would add his name to those illustrious, remembered for eternity, such as Herodotus, Suetonius, Caesar, Boethius, Xun Zi, Macaulay, Stowe, Spyri, Fitzgerald - - the list of names winds on with somebody else adding one here, two there ad infinitum. He flattered himself and stiffened his will for the challenge.

On these pages are found words of the writer Giovanni, not the poet Dom Giovanni. It is important that the reader not mistake the poet for the writer or the writer for the poet. The two may occupy the same body but not the same frame of mind simultaneously.

Also herein, the writer Giovanni, it is assumed, wishes to enlighten and greatly entertain his admirers, if any such admirers exist. Furthermore the writer undoubtedly lives with the hope that he can warm the frozen souls of those universal fanatics of which he finds himself completely surrounded. The pageant of writing (blogging) goes on with "loud, vague, tumultuous wonder" and is often presented so mindlessly by so many that a necessity may exist for an exhaustive review of the genre.

This is not a formal anthology of letters and writings, but a pastiche taken from various sources, sometimes abridged, pasteurized, revalued and rewritten to make them more comprehensible and palatable to the general reader. The letters are representative not exhaustive, and in certain instances, names have been changed to protect the innocent (or the guilty) from embarrassments in which they may not wish themselves to be found.

Who is Giovanni the writer? You tell me.

The reviewer




Notes:

Jessie B. Rittenhouse
"loud, vague, tulmultuous wonder" Caryle